In the closet

He looked at the road through the door that led to the balcony. On the road, vehicles ran here and there , but he did not notice them. He was not looking at the road at all. He was not looking at anything at all. Thoughts occupied his mind, and it did not have the bandwidth to process the sights that reached him through his eyes. Suddenly, he felt a pain rising out of his knees. He realized that he was standing. He did not remember for how long he had been standing at that spot. He turned around and walked towards one of the chairs in the room. He sat down and looked up at the fan. He was not looking up at the fan really. His mind continued to be preoccupied and it did not know what to do with the sights that were reaching it. He closed his eyes in an attempt to stop his eyes from disturbing his thoughts. He wished he could do something to stop the thoughts too, but he knew that would not be possible. His tightened his fist and punched the arm of his chair. He let a stream of unconnected curses escape his mouth. At the end of the stream, he shouted in frustration "How the hell could you fuck up like this?" 

He had messed it up again. He liked living in this neighbourhood. He thought he had finally left his past behind. He felt the blemishes of the past were erased. He was looking forward to living the life of a respectable old man. But he was cheating himself. The sight of that young man had changed everything. He started fantasizing and worse, started believing in his fantasies. He felt that finally he had a chance to live the life that he could not live earlier. The thought made him bold, and he did something that he should not have done. He revealed something about himself carelessly. For the first time in his life, he had exposed himself. In the sixty fifth year of his life, he finally had the guts the take a step forward boldly. He had opened up and extended his hand. But he had extended it to the wrong person. He was not the person he thought he was. The young man had shunned his hand. No, no, that would be wrong to say. The young man was not interested in his hand at all. He had misread the intentions and made the wrong move. Now, he felt like an idiot. He shouted once again in frustration "Feel like an idiot? You moron, you are an idiot."

He wondered how he could go on living like this. He opened his eye and looked up at the fan. He said softly "No. I can't do it." Once again, he closed his eyes. A tear drop appeared at the corner of his eye. Soon, the drop turned into a stream and flowed down his cheek. He did not wipe it. It was many years since he had felt tears roll down his cheeks. But the feeling did not last long. The tears stopped flowing from his eyes. He did not feel sad. He only felt anger, but he did not know the object of his anger. It was definitely not against the young man. He was not pompous enough to think that he was angry with the world. He did not think he was angry with himself. He felt confused. He thought he was probably angry with life. But that felt even more pompous than being angry with the world. At that moment he realized that he was angry with the world or more precisely the society around him. He did not understand why the society would not allow him to be himself. Why did the society have to put him through such embarrassments. He laughed and said "Yeh society ek number ka villain hain, Ajith jaise villain. Saala, it is drowning me in liquid oxygen - the liquid will not let me live and the oxygen will not let me die."

He got up from the chair and switched on the light. It was time for dinner.